


Haunted

by ZombieBabs



Category: Leverage
Genre: Angst, Depression, Established Relationship, Ghosts, Haunted Houses, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Multi, Nightmares, OT3, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:55:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27295276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZombieBabs/pseuds/ZombieBabs
Summary: When a job goes wrong and Eliot gets hurt, Hardison decides it's time for a little vacation. He buys a fixer-upper house in the middle of nowhere for super cheap where Eliot can rest while Parker and Hardison play house-flippers. His plan is genius, except Eliot, haunted by something from his past, only seems to be getting worse.And, oh, the house just might have a ghost in it.
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer
Comments: 10
Kudos: 107





	Haunted

Hardison fishes a chunk of pineapple out of the small plastic cup with his thumb and forefinger. Eyes trained on one of the three screens before him, he holds the piece of fruit over his mouth and lets it drop into his waiting maw. Juice floods his mouth as he chews and he grins in satisfaction.

Eliot would make a fuss if he saw Hardison eating with his hands, but the man in question is conked out on the sofa behind Hardison. Not that it's a safe bet to flaunt his utensil-free method of snacking in front of a snoozing Eliot. The man does _not_ sleep, except for in short increments, and, going by the clock on Hardison’s taskbar, he’s already been out for about an hour. The man could wake at any minute.

Let it not be said that Hardison runs from any challenge, however. Especially when that challenge revolves around food. Particularly when the food in question is citrusy, sweet, sour, or any combination of the above.

As if on cue, Eliot makes a noise. Hardison would label it somewhere in between a three and a five on the scale of Eliot’s Wake-Up Noises, which range from Refreshing Cat Nap (one) to Crazy-Ass Night Terror: Do Not Approach (ten). This sound is unhappy, but not Punch-Hardison-In-The-Face-If-He-Gets-Too-Close unhappy. 

With a grin, Hardison pushes off with his feet, sending his rolly chair sailing across the hardwood floor. He skids to a stop just before he can crash into the sofa. “Eli—”

Eliot’s eyes are open, but it’s like staring into the open windows of an empty house. His gorgeous baby blues—at least, the one baby blue that hasn’t been swollen shut by mottled blue and purple bruising—is glazed over.

“Eliot?” Hardison asks, concerned.

Eliot’s eyes flutter closed. 

Hardison smiles. If it were anyone else, he’d smooth out Eliot’s hair, maybe press a kiss into his cheek or his forehead. But, Eliot being Eliot, Hardison just smiles. “That’s right, baby. Go on back to sleep. I’ll be right over here if you need me.” 

“—cup a’ flour,” Eliot mumbles.

“Mmhmm,” Hardison agrees, tip-toeing his chair back to the desk, happy that, for once, Eliot is dreaming of doing something he loves instead of— 

Actually, it’s best not to think of it. In fact, wasn’t the whole point of buying the house out in the middle of nowhere and getting it fixed up that they could all _not_ think about it? 

Hardison shakes his head and rolls his wrists before placing his hands on the keyboard. Thinking _around_ what happened is just as bad as actually thinking _about_ it.

He works for several minutes, or several hours, or however long, his mouse tracking from one screen to the next as his brain moves from one thought to the next like a Mega-Bounce bouncy ball caught in a pinball machine. Code compiles in one window while in another a local news station plays with the volume muted. Documents—legally acquired and otherwise—fill an entire screen. Photoshop and Illustrator are open side by side on the last screen, while a little 2-D dinosaur game runs in the bottom right corner.

Eventually, Hardison realizes two things.

One: His fingers have not found any citrusy morsels in the last...well, however long it’s been. He’s not really that great with judging time, Adderall or no.

Two: Parker is standing over his shoulder and has been for...Hardison may as well give up on figuring that out. Again, time-blindness is a real thing for him. 

What is time even, really?

Hardison swallows back his shout and nearly chokes on it while he gestures desperately at Eliot’s sleeping form.

Parker grins, but gets the point. She grabs his chair by the arm rests and thief-walks backward into the next room, pulling Hardison along. Used to this type of manhandling, Hardison hikes his feet up and enjoys the ride.

“Still sleeping?” Parker asks once they’ve come to a halt in the gutted shell of the formal dining room, bent over Hardison with her hands gripping the arm rests, her face inches from his own. Like an interrogation, but sexier.

“He’s hurt, mama. You’ve seen that shiner. Our boy needs his beauty rest.”

Parker smiles, her eyes turning inward as she follows some mysterious train of thought. Once the Parker Express reaches the end of the line, she switches tracks, coming back to reality with a small frown. “I miss him.”

“Me too.”

“Once the kitchen is finished, do you think he’ll make us Eggs-Eliot again?”

Hardison’s eyes crinkle in amusement. “Seeing as Eggs-Eliot is any eggs made by Eliot, I don’t think it’ll be too hard to convince him.”

Parker bounces, clearly already anticipating digging into some damn fine eggs. Not that Hardison isn’t also looking forward to Eliot’s cooking again. Their last family meal was— 

Nope. Not thinking about it.

“Oh!” she says, clapping her hands together. “I just remembered. Why I came to talk to you in the first place.”

Hardison fakes a look of hurt. “Not for my award-winning personality or hunk-ish-ly good looks?”

Parker punches his arm.

Hardison kicks off with his feet, rolling backwards in his get-away chair while he exaggerates hugging his damaged limb to him. “Ow, woman!”

Parker ignores him. “So. You know how you bought this house for _super_ cheap?”

“Yeah. Total fixer-upper, but it has—”

“I think it might be haunted.” 

Hardison’s thoughts stutter, making a sound similar to a Yu-Gi-Oh card caught between the spokes of a slowly spinning bicycle tire. _Thwip, thwip, thwip, thwip._

“Parker,” he says, as soon as his brain reboots, “there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

Parker’s brow scrunches in that adorable way he’s seen it do whenever Eliot teases her about conspiracy theories. “Okay. But zombies definitely exist, right?”

“Can you think of any other reason my ass would be huffing and puffing on the treadmill?” 

Parker shakes her head and Hardison grins. She either gets him in the way that so few people ever have...or she _truly_ believes that Hardison regularly runs a 5K to prepare for the inevitable zombie apocalypse and not for, say, keeping in shape for their day jobs? Either way, she makes his heart so full sometimes he’s afraid it might spring a leak.

A muffled shout and heavy _thud_ sends Parker sprinting into the other room, Hardison not far behind her.

Eliot sits on the floor with his back against the sofa. His chest heaves and Hardison winces for the ribs that aren’t quite broken, but very nearly were. Eliot clutches at the brace on his knee and Hardison winces again in sympathy, sucking air in through clenched teeth.

Hardison pulls Parker back by the hem of her shirt before she can go to Eliot. “That was a ten, mama.”

Parker freezes. She looks at Hardison and she doesn’t have to say a word because she’s thinking exactly what Hardison is thinking.

Before _The Incident_ , the tens on the Eliot’s Wake-Up Noises scale, the Crazy-Ass Night Terror: Do Not Approach noises, had become few and far between. Rare, even. Now, over the last couple months, the tens have come back with a _vengeance_. 

“Eliot,” Hardison calls.

Eliot looks at Hardison, his eyes wide. He looks almost as if he’s seen one of Parker’s ghosts.

“You’re awake now,” Parker says, voice steady, reassuring. “You’re safe.”

Eliot’s eyes dart to Parker and they stare at each other for a minute, communicating silently in their Eliot-and-Parker way. The kind of way that when Parker says they’re safe, Eliot believes her, _trusts_ her. Because safety means something to the two of them in a way that Hardison has never had to understand and, if Eliot and Parker have their way, never, ever will.

Satisfied, Eliot breathes out and some of the tension in his shoulders drops.

Parker takes this as her cue to rush over to him, her hands hovering like she wants to check him over for fresh injuries.

“I’m fine,” Eliot grumbles.

“Help me get him back on the sofa,” Parker says, already lifting Eliot’s arm over her shoulder.

“Said I’m _fine_ ,” Eliot repeats. “I can get myself up.” 

Ignoring him, Hardison crouches on Eliot’s left side. He reaches for Eliot’s arm when the bandages peeking out from the sleeve of Eliot’s hoodie remind Hardison of something important. Something pretty damn important, in fact. “Where’s your sling, E?” 

“Cracked my collarbone, not my arm.”

“And what about your wrist?”

Eliot frowns. He stretches out the fingers on the offending hand. 

To anyone else, Eliot would appear fine. Fighting-fit, even. But Hardison knows better. He’s been studying Eliot for years, cataloging every subtle shift in his expression, detail by minute detail, long before there were promises of We Change Together and Til My Dying Day. The hitter’s lips part and his eyes narrow as pain flashes through them, static-y and bright, like a lightning strike over a long stretch of empty highway. 

Hardison takes Eliot’s hand—gently, so very gently—and cradles it in his own. He raises an eyebrow at Eliot, waiting.

“‘S over there,” Eliot says, nodding at the table beside the sofa.

Hardison leans over to snatch the crumpled sling and, between the three of them, they manage to get Eliot settled into it with minimal cursing. Together, they lift Eliot onto the sofa, where he deflates into the cushions, looking pale.

“You okay?” Hardison asks, perched beside Eliot. “Hungry? Thirsty? Want some soup?”

Eliot shakes his head.

Parker frowns. “Do you want to go back to sleep?”

Another shake.

Hardison exchanges a glance with Parker. She gives a miniscule shake of her own head. Hardison’s lips thin into a line. He tilts his head at Eliot and raises both brows. Parker shakes her head again, but Hardison pretends not to understand and turns back to Eliot.

He’s got that faraway look in his eyes again.

“Look,” Hardison says, ignoring Parker’s huff. “Eliot, you’ve got to talk to us. We know something’s up. Something’s _been_ up. We’re here for you, y’know? Parker and me. We’re here for you and we love you and we just— Talk to us, okay?”

Eliot shifts. It’s barely a twitch of muscle, but Hardison could swear there is something almost defensive about the way he’s holding himself. Like Hardison just struck a blow and Eliot is tensed up, waiting for the next swing to clock him in the jaw.

Parker must see it too, because she glares at Hardison before curling up beside Eliot, her chin resting on the sofa cushion just inches above Eliot’s shoulder. “I discovered something really cool today. In the upstairs bathroom.”

She waits for Eliot to grumble at her to get on with it, but he just tilts his head toward her in a way that tells her he’s listening.

Parker grins. “Underneath all that boring tile I found the most _hideous_ wallpaper.”

Hardison puts his concern onto the back burner of his mind, not to cool but to simmer. He laughs at the picture Parker describes and settles in, following Parker’s example of close but not quite touching Eliot, for the rest of the story.

The weight of the gun is familiar. Comforting, almost. The shape of it fits his hand almost as if it were made for him. Almost as if it were an extension of him. 

Eliot raises the gun and shoots. His target drops, a bullet lodged neatly between his eyes.

The man sitting at the bar with the graying hair rises from his seat. His hands are in the air and he’s jabbering like he’s just another terrified patron, but Eliot recognizes the cold, murderous glint in his eyes—it’s the same distinctive look Eliot sometimes still sees in the mirror—and Eliot shoots him twice in the chest before he can reach for the weapon tucked into the hostler beneath his jacket.

A minute stretches out into eternity where no one moves, no one makes a sound. Eliot turns to see Parker and Hardison huddled around their clients—the frail woman and her daughter—acting as human shields. As if that would have stopped professional hitmen.

As if that would have stopped _him_.

Stupid.

Eliot bares his teeth in a predatory grin. He raises the gun and pulls the trigger.

Eliot wakes with a shout caught in his throat and his hand stretched toward the ceiling like a drowning man clawing through murky water toward a rippling shaft of light piercing a surface he’ll never reach. 

Eliot lets his hand fall. He takes a deep breath and sits up in the recliner. His collarbone aches, his ribs ache, _everything_ aches, but he swallows back a groan when he catches sight of Parker and Hardison lying in a tangle of limbs on the sofa.

Eliot shakes his head, his heart doing Dr. Suess’s _How The Grinch Stole Christmas!_ levels of improbable bullshit inside his chest, growing and swelling until he can feel it knocking against his ribcage. He loves these two idiots more than he can put into words—more than fucking _oxygen_ —so why— 

—why does he keep pulling the trigger?

At least once a night, every _goddamn_ night, he pulls the trigger. He kills Parker first, then Hardison. He kills their client, the fragile woman who looks too much like— 

He kills their client’s daughter, huddled beneath the table, shaking with the force of her silent sobs, her mother’s blood seeping into the fabric of her jeans.

He kills every single person in the Brewpub and then he walks out the front door. Whistling a jaunty goddamned tune.

“Fuck.”

Parker lifts her head, her halo of platinum hair mussed on one side, and stares at Eliot with eyes that refuse to open all the way. “Wha’s huh?”

Hardison snuffles awake, blinking rapidly. “E? What’s happening?”

Eliot pushes himself out of the recliner with a grimace. “Nothing. Go back to sleep.”

“Are you okay? Do you need help?”

Eliot shakes his head. “Pain meds wore off, alright? Just go back to sleep.”

Hardison looks like he wants to get up, to help Eliot across the room the same way he’s been helping Eliot limp to and fro since Eliot fucked up and got himself beaten bloody by some two-bit nobody and tossed off a second story balcony like a sorry sack of potatoes. Since Hardison counted the mere _inches_ between where Eliot’s crumpled body lay and the fancy wrought iron fence, the kind with thin vertical bars topped with decorative spear-like spikes, and decided it was time that they all had a bit of a vacation. In a rotting two-story house in the middle of nowhere. Where Eliot could recover while Hardison and Parker played at being house flippers.

Eliot shakes his head again. He doesn’t say that he’s fine because that would be a fucking lie and he’s too exhuasted to make it believable. Instead, using the recliner as support, he limps out of range of Hardison’s big, brown puppy-dog eyes.

He’s sweating by the time he makes it to the half-bath beneath the stairs, but he does make it. He flicks on the lights and leans on the old porcelain sink, letting it take most of his weight, just for a moment. Just until he catches his breath.

Nothing happens when he turns on the tap. Then, with a high-pitched squeal almost as bad as fingernails on chalkboard, water bursts from the faucet. Eliot cups his hand and catches some of it. He splashes the water into his face, relishing in the shock of cold against his overheated skin. Blindly, he grasps at the towel hanging from the ancient plastic ring mounted to the wall and scrubs his face dry.

Feeling marginally better, Eliot shoves the towel back into the ring. Hardison’ll yell at him later that his Nana would be appalled at the _presentation_ of it or whatever. The thought almost twists his lips into a smile, but it falls away when Eliot faces the mirror.

Just beyond the light spilling out of the bathroom, shrouded in shadow, stands a figure.

An intruder? But how? Hardison’s security system has been Certified Parker-Proof, to the thief’s simultaneous dismay and delight. There’s no way anyone could have beaten it.

Except, someone clearly had.

Eliot’s eyes search the small room for anything that can be used as a weapon, but there’s barely more than a roll of toilet paper. The only person who really uses this bathroom is Eliot and only because the stairs are a pain in the ass to navigate with his knee all jacked to shit.

The figure takes a halting step closer. Something _plops_ at their feet and at first Eliot thinks it’s water, but the liquid is too dark, too viscous.

Blood.

Eliot’s veins turn to ice as he thinks of Parker and Hardison asleep on the sofa, defenseless. 

Injuries or no, weapon or no, Eliot tenses to charge the figure when they take another halting, shambling step nearer. They lift their face into the light and— 

It’s the same face Eliot woke to find staring at him while he slept on the sofa. The same paper-thin gray skin pulled so tight over bone that it’s nearly transparent. The same eyes, glowing inhumanly bright and _angry_. The same lips, oozing thick, black decay, twisted into an aborted scream.

Eliot’s knee gives out and he crumples to the floor.

A half-second later, Hardison and Parker are huddled in the doorway. Completely unhurt. A little wild around the eyes, but that’s normal for them when they’re running on less than three hours sleep.

And, just like before, there’s no sign of the figure.

No one speaks. Hardison vibrates like he wants to say something, like the words will just explode out of him if he so much as opens his mouth. Parker just frowns.

Eliot sighs. He raises the arm not in the sling as silent permission to help him up.

Parker slips in past Hardison and slots herself against Eliot with his arm around her shoulder. Parker lifts and Eliot stands, groaning against the pain. She gives him a good count of three to catch his breath before helping him out of the bathroom. 

Once they’re in the hall, Hardison gets on Eliot’s other side, placing an arm around Eliot’s waist.

“Where to?” Parker asks. Her voice is bright, almost playful, but there’s something beneath it, something meaningful.

Eliot hasn’t slept in their bed in months. Not since— 

“The recliner. Please.”

“Because of your knee?” Hardison asks, but there’s something in his voice too, something familiar. Like when he’s grifting on a con. 

Eliot frowns, but plays along. “Uh, yeah. My knee. Banged it pretty good.”

“I’ll get you some ice,” Hardison says. “Take anything for it yet?”

Eliot shakes his head. “Not yet.”

“Oh, I got it!” Parker says. She waits for Hardison to take Eliot’s weight before bouncing away.

Out of the corner of his eye, Eliot catches Hardison’s smile. For a second, it’s easy to forget everything from the last few months and he asks, “How much you wanna bet she comes back wearing the coat she stole from the hospital?”

Hardison laughs. “Oh, she’s one-hundred percent going to be wearing the coat.”

Eliot pauses, tempted to hold out his hand for their classic slap-slap-bump.

But then he remembers the cold, metallic bite of the gun in his hands. He sees Hardison fall, his body moving down, down, down, almost as if in slow motion. 

Eliot looks away.

Hardison makes a small sound of disappointment before helping Eliot the rest of the way to the recliner. Eliot sits in the chair and lies back. Hardison elevates his knee with a pillow before kneeling beside the arm of the chair.

“Listen, Eliot. Did we do something wrong? Did I?”

Eliot’s various injuries protest when he reaches out to clap Hardison on the back of the neck, but Eliot grits his teeth and does it anyway. Gently, he pulls at Hardison until the taller man leans over Eliot, until their faces are inches apart.

Hardison’s eyes search Eliot, as if the key to the Eliot-puzzle is hidden in his expression somewhere. They catch on Eliot’s lips and Hardison’s tongue unconsciously darts out to wet his own. “E?”

Eliot squeezes the back of Hardison’s neck and lets his hand fall back to his side.

For a moment, Hardison doesn’t move, still searching. When the answers don’t come, he gives Eliot a small, sad smile. “Let me get you that ice.”

Hardison trudges off and Eliot sighs. “Can I help you, Dr. Parker?”

Parker peers not-so-stealthily through the wooden bars of the stair railing. Not hiding, because he’d never have seen her if she didn’t want him to, but waiting her turn. She pulls herself up and descends the rest of the stairs on silent thief-feet. She twirls once she reaches the bottom, sending the hem of her stolen doctor’s coat swirling around her thighs. She holds up two bottles and rattles them like maracas. “I’ve got your pills, Patient Eliot.”

Eliot holds out his hand and waits while Parker counts out tablets of ibuprofen and tylenol. She places them in his open palm one at a time. Eliot goes to swallow them dry when Hardison arrives, handing him a glass of water with a please-don’t-be-disgusting expression. Eliot rolls his eyes and takes them with a sip of the water.

While Parker takes the glass and sets it on the table beside the sofa, Hardison places a bag of ice wrapped in a dish towel over Eliot’s injured knee. Before Hardison can go far, Eliot grabs his wrist. “Thanks.”

“Welcome,” Hardison says, using his grifter voice again. 

Eliot drops his arm and looks away.

Parker comes forward with a blanket. She lowers it onto his lap before helping him out of the sling. “Don’t worry about Hardison. Just...get better, okay?”

She isn’t just talking about his injuries.

All Eliot can manage is a small nod.

As Parker and Hardison press play on Hardison’s computer and situate themselves on the sofa, resuming their Netflix marathon of some show about a crime-fighting devil, or _the_ Devil, or _whatever_ , Eliot just hopes that better is still an option.

But the gray settles over him again and Eliot closes his eyes, too exhausted to fight the numb and the cold.

The next day, Eliot shakes off enough of the gray to go to the fridge to put something together with the groceries Hardison had delivered. Standing behind him in the reflection of the brushed steel door stands the figure. He freezes, staring at the hazy reflection, waiting for the figure to make a move. When it just stands there, doing nothing, Eliot opens the fridge door. He balances as many ingredients as he can with only one working arm and when the fridge door swings shut, the figure is gone. 

The day after, Eliot sits on the sofa, knee throbbing, and closes his eyes. It should be impossible to fall asleep through the _bang bang bang_ of a hammer somewhere within the house, but the gray is like being trapped on the wrong side of a snowglobe. The snow and the glass muffles everything, inside and out. 

He wakes up to the figure standing over him again. The figure’s oozing lips move, but they can’t form words. The glowing eyes burn with fury.

Eliot throws his good arm over his face and lets the gray pull him back into sleep.

The day after that, Eliot’s nightmares are so bad that Parker ignores the Crazy-Ass Night Terror: Do Not Approach rule and tries to wake him. Eliot takes an automatic swing and Parker goes down, holding her split cheek. 

For a moment, no one moves. No one blinks. No one even breathes.

Then, the horrible spell broken, Hardison falls to his knees beside Parker, pulling her hands away from her face so he can inspect the damage.

Eliot pushes himself out of the recliner and bolts, his knee and wrist and collarbone all screaming in protest.

Except there’s nowhere to go. The ground floor is a circle. The living room where they’ve set up camp connects to the formal dining room, which connects to a family room, which connects to the kitchen, which connects back to the living room.

Eliot drops to the dusty hardwood floor of the family room, heart pounding, eyes burning. He clutches his wrist to his chest and sucks in a breath and holds it, clamping down on whatever it is that’s threatening to tear its way out of him.

Out of the shadows shuffles the figure. The figure’s feet are bare, stained with dust and grime, with yellowed nails, overlong and chipped like broken china. The frayed hem of the figure’s tattered dress brushes around the figure’s ankles when she walks.

“Eliot!” Parker and Hardison say in unison.

They rush toward Eliot as he tries to scramble away from the figure and, misunderstanding, they come to an abrupt stop.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Hardison says, hands up like Eliot’s some kind of rabid dog, foam dripping from his bared teeth.

“I’m okay,” Parker says, turning her face to show Eliot the shallow cut. “See? Already stopped bleeding.”

Eliot tears his eyes away from the figure to look. Ice for the bruising, no stitches. A single Pretty Pink Princess Band-Aid and a kiss from each of them to make it better.

She’s lucky. Eliot could have done so much worse.

He has, in fact. Every night in his dreams, he _has_.

Eliot shakes his head and stares at the figure standing, swaying, in the center of the room, blood and bile dripping to the floor at her feet.

Floorboards creak as Hardison takes a step closer to Eliot. Nearer to the figure.

“No,” Eliot says.

Hardison stops. “Eliot, baby, c’mon. You’re hurt. Let me look at you.” 

Parker follows Eliot’s gaze and frowns. Her brows furrow and it’s almost as if—it’s almost as if Parker can see the figure, too.

“Stay away,” Eliot tells her. Because out of the two of them, Parker will listen.

Except she doesn’t. Ignoring the figure, she crosses the room and drops next to Eliot, kicking up a cloud of dust.

When the cloud dissipates, the figure is gone.

Hardison follows Parker’s lead, careful not to disturb any more of the dust as he lowers himself to sit cross-legged beside Eliot. Voice low, he says, “C’mon, man. Let me see your hand.” 

Wordlessly, still staring at where the figure once stood, Eliot lets Hardison take his injured hand.

Hardison examines it, graceful hacker’s fingers poking and prodding as gently as if Eliot was one of his circuit boards. Eliot grits his teeth as Hardison turns his hand this way and that, testing Eliot’s range of motion. “I’m not a doctor, but I think it’s just about as fractured as it was before you fed Parker a knuckle sandwich. You’d need a X-ray to be sure, but I know, I know, y’all don’t do hospitals.”

Eliot takes his hand back and hugs it to his chest. “Thanks.”

They sit in silence for a full minute before Parker pulls her feet up, wrapping her arms around her knees. “I’m sorry, Eliot. Well, I’m sorry, but I’m not sorry. Is that a thing? Because I’m sorry you were having nightmares, but you were yelling, so I’m not sorry for waking you up. And I’m sorry about your wrist. It was my fault. I should have remembered to duck.”

“The rule is Do Not Approach, Parker.”

Parker smiles her serene But-Rules-Don’t-Apply-To-Me smile. “Next time, I won’t forget.”

Eliot closes his eyes, his chest aching for reasons unrelated to any injury. He loves these two damn idiots. So fucking much.

“As much as I enjoy spending time cuddled up to y’all,” Hardison says, standing up with an exaggerated groan, “my ass does not appreciate sitting on the cold, hard ground. Mind if we take this love-fest back to the sofa? Or, better yet, our room with the fancy, plush-as-hell, king size bed?” 

Parker hops to her feet and they both help Eliot to stand. 

“Be nice to Eliot,” Parker says. “It hurts him too much to get up and down the stairs.”

“Y’all can go upstairs,” Eliot says, like he’s said a hundred times over the last week. “Coupla ice packs and I’ll be fine on my own.”

Parker rolls her eyes like she’s giving Eliot a test and thinks he’s getting all the answers, including the easy ones for extra credit, wrong on purpose. “Admit it, you just don’t like when we watch the Detective Devil show.”

“Oh my god,” Hardison says, offended on the behalf of imaginary characters in a fictional television show. “It’s _Lucifer_. You know, as in Lucifer Morningstar? The name of the main character? He introduces himself in, like, every episode.”

“I thought Detective Chloe was the main character?” Parker chirps. “Oh, or the demon lady? I like her.”

“Mazikeen,” Hardison says with a shake of his head. “And, yeah, she’s pretty badass.”

From what Eliot has seen of the show, he’s inclined to agree, but he keeps his thoughts to himself as they get him set up in the recliner. This time, Hardison passes Eliot the painkillers while Parker makes up the ice packs. 

As Hardison takes the water glass back from Eliot, he hesitates.

Eliot stares at him, praying to a god he’s not sure he still believes in that Hardison won’t try to ask him what’s wrong again. 

Hardison flashes a small smile and brushes the sweat-damp hair back from Eliot’s forehead. “Love you.”

“Til my dying day,” Eliot says.

“Aww, you guys,” Parker says, delight lighting up her eyes like a stolen diamond necklace sparkling in the rainbow LED glow of one of her Christmas trees. “I love you, too.”

Parker places a large ice-pack over Eliot's busted knee and balances a smaller ice pack around Eliot’s wrist. 

Hardison spreads the blanket over Eliot. He smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “No more tens, ya hear?”

“Do my best,” Eliot says.

“And I’ll do my best to duck!” Parker says, raising an inspiring fist in the air.

“ _Parker_ ,” Eliot and Hardison groan in unison.

Parker just grins. “What time is it anyway?”

Hardison checks the time on his computer as he pulls up the bookmark for Netflix. “‘Bout four-thirty.”

“Hey, that’s not even that late.”

Eliot shakes his head. When they’re not on a job, Parker and Hardison have the sleep schedules of hyper-active teenagers. Not that Eliot Can’t-Sleep-More-Than-Ninety-Minutes-At-A-Time Spencer has any room to talk about proper sleep hygiene. 

Closing his eyes to the rustling of Hardison and Parker getting comfortable on the sofa, Eliot falls asleep shortly after the familiar guitar riff of the show’s intro.

Hardison takes a swig straight from the 2-liter soda bottle, basking in the neon-orange carbonated taste of citrusy success as he closes approximately twenty-five of the seventy-eight open tabs on his browser. It’s nowhere near a record, but it still feels good. Like winning at Overwatch, but if all of the opponents were himself.

Now, there’s an idea…

Hardison opens the Sticky Notes app and waits while, in a manner similar to winning a game of virtual solitaire, his screen fills with notes of various sizes and colors. Hardison opens a new sticky, types: _overwatch mod: me vs me_ , and changes the sticky’s color to green. With a right click, he hides all the notes, clearing the screen. He sits back, hands folded behind his head, and stares at a deserted cobweb clinging to the ceiling by the grace of just a few silken strands.

It’s been two days since Parker woke Eliot from his nightmares and got herself socked in the face for her efforts. Parker still wears a new Pretty Pink Princess Band-Aid each day even though the cut has long since scabbed over. The plasticy edges of the bandage are haloed by a mottled blue and purple bruise, but the swelling has gone down. It’s all Hardison can do to keep her from poking at it.

If he’s being honest—and for a criminal, Hardison actually _does_ try his best to be honest—Hardison is more worried about Eliot. Has been since The Incident. Since before The Incident, even. Something about that job with the cancer patient and her daughter had thrown Eliot from the first briefing, from the moment Haridson threw the image of their client on the screen. Eliot had shrugged off their concern and, used to Eliot and his Eliot-ocity, they let him.

Compared to some of the stunts they’ve pulled off, the job wasn’t even that complicated. Everything went according to plan. Until it came to the final meeting with their client.

Parker and Hardison sat across from Rosy and her daughter, Sabrina, at one of the booths in the dining room of the Brewpub. Eliot sat at another table, still within earshot, eyes glued to Rosy with an expression that Hardison could almost call wistful.

No one expected the man dressed in scrubs in the corner booth to stand and point a gun at Rosy. While Parker and Hardison urged Rosy and Sabrina to get down, Eliot had gone for the gunman. As he and Scrubs struggled, a second man stood from one of the stools at the bar. For a second, he pretended to be just another scared customer, but then his expression went blank. Scary blank. He pulled a gun from a holster hidden beneath his black suit jacket, flipped off the safety, aimed, and— 

_Crack! Crack!_

The gunman in the black jacket crumpled, dead. 

Hardison turned to see Eliot holding the gun, a strange expression on his face. Scrubs was sitting at a table, his arms dangling at his sides and his face planted in a bed of Eliot’s special seasonal salad, unconscious.

It was after that that things got really weird with Eliot. He stopped cooking. Stopped _eating_. Hardly spoke, not even to gripe when Hardison went on a nerd-spiral. He slept more often than not, but never with Parker and Hardison. His nightmares started up, worse than Parker and Hardison had ever seen them.

When they took that next job, Parker was convinced it was just the thing to break Eliot out of his funk. But Eliot was distracted, sluggish. It was only one goon, but he managed to get the best of Eliot and sent their hitter sailing off the second floor balcony, where he’d nearly been _impaled_ on the anti-climb security fence. 

Hardison had panicked. He’s man enough to admit it. He’d found his boyfriend bleeding into the grass just _inches_ from where he could have been _speared_ by a _fence_. As soon as the job wrapped up, he convinced Parker that they needed a vacation and he had _just_ the thing, see? A few weeks away from it all and, hey, when they were done fixing the place up, maybe they could add it to their list of safehouses?

But, in spite of Hardison’s best efforts—and his efforts are usually better than the best—Eliot seems to be getting _worse_. 

Hardison may not be a doctor, but he does know his way around Google. He skimmed a few articles, brain automatically recoiling at words like ‘depression’ and ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’ because they weren’t Eliot-words. But he let the words bounce around inside his skull and the more they used his gray matter like a trampoline the more certain Hardison became that the help Eliot needs is beyond what Hardison and Parker can give him.

What Eliot needs is real, actual, _professional_ help. 

Hardison just has to figure out how to convince Eliot. And considering the snarling wild-animal-trapped-in-a-corner mess Eliot has been over the last two days, he’ll need to figure it out sooner rather than later.

Hardison sighs. There, he’s done it. He’s thought about The Incident. Wasn’t so bad, was it?

“Yes,” he says, anxiety rattling around in his ribcage like a marble in one of those wooden labyrinth puzzle boxes. “Yes, it was, actually.”

“What was what?”

Hardison jumps forty feet into the air. He spins his chair around, hand clutched approximately where Nana wears her Sunday pearls.

Parker cackles. “Sorry, sorry.”

“Are not,” Hardison grumbles, but the effect is ruined because he’s already smiling. “Whatcha need, baby girl?”

She waves a wrinkled piece of paper like a little flag. “Eliot said we should take Lucille IV to the hardware store. Gave me a list of stuff to get.” 

Hardison’s smile thins. “We, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you think?”

Parker crinkles the paper in her hands as she thinks. “You should stay. I’ll go.”

“You sure? I think he likes you more than he likes me, right now.”

“He can’t even look at me. Because of the—” Parker points at the bandage on her cheek.

“Pretty Pink Princesses,” Hardison finishes for her.

“Yeah.” Parker sighs. 

She shrinks a little, looking like what Hardison images she looked like as a kid, lost and alone. It makes him want to scoop her into his arms, so that’s what he does, cradling the back of her head with his hand as she presses her face into the meat of his shoulder. 

She sniffles, but her eyes are dry by the time she pulls back. “Can you try talking to him? About what we talked about?”

Hardison brushes a stray lock of hair out of her face. “He’s not going to be happy.”

“He’s not exactly happy now.”

Hardison can’t argue with her there. “Alright. Okay. I’ll _try_.”

Parker smiles. “Thanks.”

When Parker backs away, dangling from her fingers are the keys to Lucille IV. As usual, Hardison never even felt them leave his back pocket.

Hardison points a _j’accuse_ finger at her, but his face fails to be anything other than impressed. “Swiper, no swiping!”

Parker laughs as she turns and dances away. “Love you!”

“Love you, too. Bring back something for dinner? Not Toaster Strudel—the freezer’s already full.”

Parker responds by raising a hand in the air to show that she heard him and Hardison grins. Even if another box of strawberry toaster goodness ends up in her shopping bags, Haridison is the world champion of Freezer Tetris. He’ll make it fit.

After the front door slams shut—the WD40 worked a little too well on the hinges, it seems—Hardison stands in the middle of the room long enough that even he feels awkward about it. He’s not looking forward to the conversation with Eliot, but there’s only so long that he can put it off, so he gathers his courage around him like his favorite World of Warcraft armor and heads for the stairs.

The hallway is a bit of a mess. Parker and Hardison have been using it as something like a staging area, with tools and cans of paint and open boxes of cereal lined against the walls. Hardison picks his way around a large toolbox with its inner shelves pulled out to reveal a plastic organizer at the bottom. Inside each of the organizer’s individual compartments are jelly beans, sorted by flavor.

As Hardison reaches the end of the hallway, he stops, ears pricked. Is that—?

It is. Hardison listens for a moment longer, just to be sure, but it is. It’s Eliot. Eliot talking. Or, no, not really talking. Growling. Low and angry.

Hardison shakes his head at himself, feeling silly. Eliot’s just on the phone. Talking to one of his army buddies or hitter friends. Cable company, maybe. Hardison’s own cell has been blowing up lately with scammers spoofing local numbers. It wouldn’t be out of character for Eliot to yell at a robotic voice telling him they’ve been trying to reach him regarding his vehicle’s extended warranty one too many times. 

Except...wasn’t Eliot’s phone laying on the kitchen counter when Hardison went to grab a new 2-liter that morning? Eliot had dragged himself upstairs around six and hasn’t been down since. Unless Parker retrieved it for him— _ha_ —it should still be there.

So...who? 

Careful of the creaking floorboards, Hardison approaches the bedroom on the right. He peers through the inch or two of open door to see Eliot huddled on the floor with his back pressed against the wall, staring at something—or _someone_ —on the other side of the room.

“I said, what the _hell_ do you want?” Eliot asks.

No answer.

“Go away. Get out. Move on. _Whatever_. Just get the fuck away from me.”

Again, no answer.

Through gritted teeth, Eliot continues, “Leave me alone.”

Hardison pushes the door open. “Eliot, who—?”

The room is empty.

“Eliot?”

For a fraction of a second, Eliot looks disappointed. Then his expression shutters. “Dammit, Hardison. Shouldn’t you be out with Parker?”

“Hey. Figured I’d stay behind. I know you were probably looking forward to getting the house to yourself for a bit, but I didn’t want to leave you stranded if you needed any help getting around.”

Eliot narrows his eyes. “Right.”

 _Shit_. Eliot knows. Of course Eliot knows. Or suspects, at any rate. Hardison and Parker have been careful, haven’t they?

“Look, man, we’re worried about you. We just want to help.”

“I don’t need you babysitting me.”

Hardison tries not to take offense. Eliot can be stubborn and prickly on a good day. And these have not been good days. “Speaking, um, kind of tangentially, I actually had something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“I’m not crazy, Hardison.”

Hardison blinks. “What—?”

“I wasn’t asleep, Alec. I heard you and Parker talking.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_. Not as careful as they thought, then.

Hardison holds up his hands, trying to do some amount of damage control. “So, then you know we _don’t_ think you’re crazy.”

Eliot’s glare is glacial. “Do I? You won’t even let me out of your sight long enough to run errands.”

“I told you, I didn’t want to leave you stran—”

“You think I got myself tossed off that roof on purpose.”

Hardison shakes his head, both to deny the accusation and to drive away the echo of the horror he felt when he found Eliot’s broken, bleeding body. “Of course we don’t.” 

“You think if you leave me alone for five fucking seconds I’ll cut the bullshit and do it myself.”

“That’s not—” Hardison's chest constricts like there’s a giant invisible hand squeezing his ribcage. He tries again, voice small and weak and in no way believable. “Eliot, no.”

Eliot bares his teeth in an ugly, awful smile. “I’m not crazy, Hardison. And I ain’t planning to jump off any goddamn rooves. So why don’t you take your sorry excuse for help and go play superhero somewhere else, alright? Leave me the hell alone.”

Hardison opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. He swallows around the thick lump of hurt and tries again. “I hope it’s worth it, man. Pushing us away like this. I really do.”

Hardison ducks out of the room and nearly trips over the open tool box making his escape. He’s halfway down the stairs when Eliot’s voice calls out, “Hardison, wait!”

Hardison doesn’t wait.

Eliot spends the rest of the day in a gray haze. He manages to pull up a few of the rotting floorboards in the bedroom he’s sequestered himself in, but after a while he finds himself watching motes of dust dance in the yellow shaft of sunlight struggling in through the dirty window. He blinks back to himself only once there’s no more sun for them to dance in.

He drags himself upright, his muscles tight from hours of sitting on the floor, his wrist and knee making their displeasure known. He limps out of the room and around the jelly bean filled toolbox to the stairs.

The living room is dark. Even Hardison’s computer seems to have been shut down. Eliot heads toward the kitchen, his way lit solely by the light above the stove. His phone is on the counter and Eliot glances at the screen as he picks it up.

Two texts from Parker:

_apologize to Hardison_

and

_dinner in the fridge_

Eliot flushes with shame. He’s not particularly hungry, but he goes to the fridge anyway and pulls it open.

On the shelf is a plate wrapped in foil. Eliot tugs it down and peers beneath the foil to find a pile of pulled-pork drenched in golden barbeque sauce, a tangle of green beans, and a heavenly mound of custard-style baked mac-and-cheese. Comfort food.

Heart aching, Eliot replaces the foil and sets the plate back in the fridge.

It doesn’t take Eliot long to piece together that he’s the only person downstairs. Pulling his phone out, he does the swipe-y thing Hardison taught him to text Parker.

_Thanks for dinner. Where are you?_

Parker’s response is almost immediate: _upstairs_

Eliot closes his eyes while his stomach does little flips. He wanted to be left alone, didn’t he? Here they are, giving him what he wanted, and Eliot _hates_ it.

He swipes at the screen and deletes everything several times before pressing send.

_Can I come up? Want to apologize to Hardison._

He waits for what feels like an eternity for the three little dots to stop bouncing. Finally, the dots disappear, replaced with Parker’s reply: _k_

Eliot knows better than to wait for her to ask if he needs any help with the stairs. She told him to get better and instead— 

Eliot will see the look of resigned hurt he put on Hardison’s face again in his nightmares, he’s sure of it. The question is whether he’ll see it before or after he puts two rounds into Hardison’s chest.

The gray threatens to take hold of him, but Eliot heads it off, grabbing the rail at the base of the stairs. He half-pulls himself up the first step, then the next, careful not to put too much weight on his braced knee. 

No light escapes from the bottom of the closed bedroom door, but he doesn’t expect either Parker or Hardison to be asleep. Not at this hour. 

He stands there, at the door, imagining Parker hanging upside down from the ceiling in one of her rigs, reading a book by the beam of the flashlight clenched between her teeth. He imagines Hardison’s face illuminated by the glow of his GameBoy. Switch. Whatever. He imagines them both cuddled up in the monster-sized tub in the _en suite_ bathroom, Parker’s Froot-Loops scented bubbles piled up to their chins.

He imagines them both, just the two of them, together, the way things used to be. Simple. Content. Happy, even.

Eliot releases a slow breath and turns away from the door. He barely manages a single limp-hop toward the stairs when the door swings open.

“Eliot?”

He freezes. “Hey, Parker. Thought you mighta been asleep.”

She barks a laugh, like he’s just told a particularly clever knock-knock joke. “What? It’s, like, barely nine o’clock.”

“Oh,” Eliot says, trying for cool and casual. “Thought it was later than that.”

“You said you were coming up a while ago. We were starting to get worried.”

Even with all his unfortunate experience with torture, Eliot can’t hide his flinch. He turns to face her like a man condemned to the firing squad.

Parker’s expression softens. It’s not pity, but it’s something close. “Oh, Eliot.”

She throws the door open wide and steps aside, the invitation clear. 

Eliot shuffles inside.

The room is large with a king size bed pushed against the center of the right wall. In the corner, just above one of the IKEA night stands, hangs one of Parker’s rigs. Across from the bed is a matching IKEA dresser. Mounted to the wall above the dresser is a large television, the screen dark. Beside the dresser, leaning against the wall, is one of Eliot’s guitars.

Hardison is spread out on the unmade bed, his closed-off expression illuminated by the glow of his GameBoy. He flashes a smile at Parker when she comes to sit cross-legged beside him, but goes back to his game without even looking at Eliot.

Eliot’s insides do something twisty and freeze-y and, for a second, he almost wishes he could wrap himself inside the muted cocoon of the gray.

But that would be too easy. And Eliot doesn’t deserve easy.

“I’m sorry, Hardison.”

Hardison presses a button and the game goes silent. He lowers the handheld system enough that he can peer at Eliot over the top of it. “Thanks, man.”

“That’s not—” Eliot forces himself to continue. “That’s not all.”

Hardison sits up, resting the GameBoy in his lap.

“I want to explain.”

When Eliot doesn’t follow that with an actual explanation, Parker cocks her head to the side and asks, “Explain what?”

“What’s been happening. What did happen. With me.”

Hardison’s brows furrow. “Okay. I’d like that.”

“ _We_ would like that,” Parker says. “Very much.”

Eliot swallows. “Okay.”

Silence fills the room.

“Eliot?” Hardison prompts. 

“My ma died. When I was just a kid. Cancer.”

Hardison and Parker go still, their eyes wide with surprise. Eliot’s never spoken about his mother. 

“I’m sorry, man,” Hardison says.

“That’s awful,” Parker says.

“It, uh, took her real slow,” Eliot continues. “By the end, she looked like she was made of porcelain. You know, sliver-thin and pale. One wrong move and she’d just shatter to pieces.”

This time, Parker and Hardison don’t say anything. They watch him, eyes full of concern, waiting for him to continue.

“She looked like Rosy. Our client from the Sugar Pill Job.”

Understanding dawns in Parker’s eyes.

“Oh shit,” Hardison says. “Oh damn.”

“Yeah,” Eliot says, ducking his head and addressing the scuffed hardwood floor. “After I knocked out the first guy, I saw the second one reach into his jacket and I just—I reacted.”

“You saved their lives, E,” Hardison says.

“Maybe. But I didn’t have to kill the second one. I wasn’t hurt. I could have made it across the room in time. Could have taken him out, same as the first.”

Hardison shakes his head. He opens his mouth to say something, but Parker, eyeing Eliot like one of her fiddly locks, beats him to it. “You’re not just upset because you used the gun, though. You’ve used them before, even when you didn’t want to. It’s because we saw you, isn’t it? Or, not _you_ , but the Eliot you used to be, right? You’re upset because you did something past-Eliot would do and you don’t think we could ever love that Eliot.”

Parker cocks her head, a small frown pulling at her lips. “Is that why you’ve been pushing us away?”

“No,” Eliot says, even as somewhere in the back of his mind, Parker’s words ring true. “No, Parker. I’m _upset_ because it felt _good_. I’m upset because I _liked_ it.”

Parker’s expression remains neutral. “No. I don’t think you did.”

“Then why do I keep pulling the trigger? Huh, Parker? Why do I keep—” Eliot cuts himself off. He eyes the distance between himself and the door, but knows he can’t cross it. Not yet. Not until this is over. “Why do I point a gun at you and Hardison every single goddamn night? Why do I _smile_ as I pull the fucking trigger?”

Hardison looks stricken. Parker puts her hand on his knee to keep him from getting up.

“You don’t wake up smiling, Eliot. You wake up screaming.”

Eliot shakes his head. “I—” 

“You’re not the same as past-Eliot, Eliot. You’re our Eliot. Our _good_ Eliot. And you would never, ever hurt us.”

“I want—” The words come out thick and Eliot chokes on them, his vision blurring, “I want so damn bad to believe that.”

Hardison leaps off the bed and wraps strong arms around Eliot. “Eliot, _baby_. Believe it, okay?” Hardison strokes Eliot’s hair, fingers calm where his words are half-frantic. “You’re good. You’re so _good_. You keep us safe. You keep us happy and healthy and _safe_. You know that, right? You gotta know that. And, if you somehow don’t know that and I gotta beat it into your head, you just let me know, alright? You’re hurt and, as you know, that’s my hitter niche.”

Eliot presses his face into Hardison’s broad chest. His lips twist into a watery smile. “Yer outta my weight class.”

“Me?” Hardison squawks. “If anything, you’re out of _my_ class, shorty.”

“Does that make me the referee?” Parker asks.

“Hell no,” Hardison says. “I need someone to do that thing where you jump off a ladder and tackle his ass.”

Eliot breathes in, filling himself up with Hardison’s weird-but-good blend of expensive cologne, artificial orange, and gummy candy—and _fuck_ , but he’s missed that—before prying himself away. “I love you.”

Hardison grins. “I know.”

Eliot rolls his eyes. “Nerd.”

Before Hardison can say anything about it being the age of the geek, Eliot turns to Parker and holds out a hand. 

With a grin, she hops off the bed and slips her arms around his neck. She kisses the corner of his mouth. “I knew you could get better.”

“I dunno about better. Not all the way, anyway. I figure I’ll probably still need a little help.” Eliot looks at Hardison over Parker’s shoulder. “Your help. Yours and Parker’s.”

Hardison hears the unspoken question. “You got it, man.”

As if on cue, Eliot’s knee starts to throb. Eliot shifts, trying to take more weight off of it, when Hardison snakes an arm around his waist. “Let’s get you to bed, huh?”

Eliot smirks. “Always trying to get me into bed with ya, man.”

“What can I say? The view’s not so bad, even when you’re all wrapped up in bandages.”

“Totally,” Parker says, supporting his other side. “You’re like a sexy mummy.”

Together, Parker and Hardison steer Eliot towards the bed. He ends up in the middle with a pillow propping up his knee, Parker and Hardison on either side of him.

“Now, isn’t this better than the recliner?” Hardison asks.

“Mm,” Eliot agrees, eyes closed. For the first time in months the gray isn’t hanging over him. He’s warm and full and, fuck, okay, he’s exhausted, but he thinks that maybe tonight the dreams won’t come. Or if they do, Hardison and Parker are right here. Right beside him. Safe.

He lets himself sink into the plush-as-hell mattress with a long, slow sigh.

“Shh,” Parker whispers. “Eliot’s sleeping.”

“Am not,” Eliot mumbles, half-asleep.

After about ten seconds of quiet, Hardison breaks the silence. “Hey, Eliot?”

“Mm?”

“Who were you talking to earlier?”

Eliot frowns, confused. Then, it comes to him. “Oh. House is haunted, man.”

“ _What_?” Hardison shrieks.

Parker raises a triumphant fist in the air. “I knew it!”

Eliot smiles and closes his eyes, lulled the rest of the way to sleep by Hardison’s rapid-fire questions and Parker’s cheerful chatter. Later, he’ll convince Hardison to hire some contractors to finish up the house so they can all go home. 

Together.

**Author's Note:**

> this was extremely very self-indulgent and my first Leverage fic, yay! and i managed to post it just in time for Halloween! thanks so much for reading and i hope you have a safe and excellent holiday! c:


End file.
